Critique of the play AERO

White noise in the air

author: Divna Stojanov

The half-hour non-verbal performance Aero by independent theater troupe Odivo from Slovakia is intended for people older than 1.5 years, yet at the International Festival of Theater for Children Subotica, even younger babies in the audience watched the events on the stage with fascination. Directed by Monika Kováčová and performed by Mária Danadová and Filip Hajduk, the play shows the hovering of various objects: bags, silk fabrics, balls, bird feathers, confetti and balloons above the fan and hair dryer.

In consultation with Matej Háasz, who is also the composer of the music in the play, the actors chose white noises, sounds at a frequency between 20 and 20 thousand hertz that have a calming effect on people because they are reminiscent of the noises we were exposed to in the prenatal period. Thus, the quiet mechanical sound of several fans lined up in a circle and the hum of hair dryers, together with slow-paced music and simple melodies and floating objects, created relaxing, meditative scenes. The most interesting sequences were at the very beginning, when transparent plastic bags in the shape of various human silhouettes fluttered above the fans and when, very wittily, the actors pumped balloons imitating the performance of musicians at concerts.

Thicker and thinner circles were drawn on the costumes of the performers, which symbolizes, as the actors explain, the circulation of air. When performing in the home country, the audience surrounds the playing space, which certainly creates an even more magical and intimate atmosphere.

The peculiarity of this play is reflected in the fact that the objects used, ie puppets (Ivana Macková) are everyday objects, which directly teaches children that pompous toys are not always necessary for play, but a simple ball and imagination are enough. And once the potential for reviving an object was exhausted, the actors would put it off and take another.

Aero is also completely free of any dramatic story, characters, plot, conflict and other elements, which opened a wide field of interpretation for each of the viewers. For example, the floating bag reminded me of the famous scene from the movie American Beauty and then of the yellow bag on the tree that I saw that day ... The possibility of interpretation is endless. The whirling of the little man, made of plastic bag, on the fan allowed us to imagine a love scene or a clash of two enemies, and for someone it could simply function only on a visual level. The meaning of the performance is not imposed by the author and that is why the play is valuable for the development of children’s creative thinking, especially because there is no single exact solution. Even after watching the play, many potential interpretations of the movements and relationships between the animated objects are very vivid in the mind of viewers.

By precisely combining the experience of apophenia, white noises and materials displaced by the air flow, the authors of the play have created a flying laboratory for all ages.